Memories are made of this
We tell ourselves Ireland was a sunnier, nicer place back when we went on our summer holidays.
But was it really so good?
We sent three Irish Examiner writers back to their childhood holiday destinations, to see if their rose-tinted glasses would still be in place when they returned.
From Galway to Waterford to West Cork, Pól Ó Conghaile, Kirstie McDermott and Tony Leen reminisce and reflect on a changing Ireland.
FOR EVERY star God put in the sky, he laid a million stones in Connemara. That’s just one of the platitudes and pearls of wisdom floating around this wild, west-of-Ireland landscape (in fact, for every star God put in the sky, there’s probably a million sayings about Connemara). But it perfectly encapsulates the rawness and romance of the place.
I first visited on a family holiday in 1980. I was six, and we stayed at Renvyle House, a coastal bolthole that even back then, had a reputation as a destination in itself.
My memories are impressionistic: fleeting film clips rather than detailed scenes. But clocks tend to tick, years tend to pass, and like so many other childhood memories, my recollections of Renvyle have gone soft at the edges, long since acquiring the toasty glow of nostalgia.
I remember walking a stony Atlantic strand, finding a dead dogfish on the beach. It might as well have been a dolphin, such was the fascination we got out of it. The creature was prodded with sticks, put back in the shallows only to wash up again, and finally buried in a little sarcophagus of stones.
I remember boating on the lake by Renvyle House. I remember hiking in the hills — or Himalayas, as they seemed to my six-year-old legs. I remember vivid splashes of yellow gorse, and a picnic packed into a little cardboard box that folded cleverly to create handles. The wind was threatening to cut the woolly hat off my head, but then Dad poured the soup, and it made me feel like the Ready Brek kid.
Thirty years later, Connemara gave me another wonderful walk. I had been in a minor car accident, and suffered ongoing back pain as a result. I was easing myself back into serious exercise, and I pitched up at Connemara National Park for the first serious hike I’d taken in years.
Breaking out the hiking boots, I set off along the twisting pathways towards Diamond Hill. The four seasons were served up like tapas, and I got hammered by rain. But I continued to scramble up the steeper sections, and finally struck the summit. On cue, the clouds parted like curtains, and sunlight streamed down on a panorama stretching from Kylemore Abbey to the Twelve Bens. I stood there with a smile on my face, gulping down great lung-loads of fresh air.
Connemara has always been a draw for city slickers. During the Celtic Tiger years, Roundstone was like a seaside version of Ranelagh, and not in a good way. As with other tranches on Achill Island, in Gweedore and west Clare, too many holiday homes were built, silly prices were paid for seafood, and the coastal road from Galway to Carraroe began to feel like a rat run.
Today, things have gone quieter. But you still find people heading west to revive. On this latest trip, I popped into the Connemara Hamper in Clifden to buy lunch. I emerged with the life story of Leo Halliday, an exploration geologist who spent 40 years travelling the world, before retiring to the place where he fished mackerel as a child. Today, he runs a little deli with his wife, Eileen.
I drove around Ballyconneely Peninsula, watching a dark belly of cloud stoop almost as low as the roof of the car, before giving way to a spell of sensational sunshine. I pulled in at Dog’s Bay, parked at the old cattle gate, and sat on a big boulder overlooking the strand. I had the place to myself.
One of the beauties of Connemara is that it means so many different things to different people. To you, Connemara could mean Maam Cross and The Quiet Man. To me, it could be horses careering across the tidal causeway at Omey Island, or tractor rides to Dan O’Hara’s homestead.
Then there are the beaches. My daughter, Rosa, is now six-years-old herself. And sifting through the coral strand at Carraroe, with its countless bones and shells, I felt like things had come full circle.
I’d always wanted to snorkel off the west coast too, and I got my chance near Glassilaun with Scuba Dive West. Squeezing into a thick wetsuit, complete with hoods and gloves, I duck-dived to examine a scallop on the seafloor. Surfacing again, the water gave way to a landscape strewn with black-faced sheep, yellow gorse, and of course, a carpet of stones.
As a travel writer, I get back to Connemara a couple of times a year. I never get tired of it. For every star God put in the sky, there’s a million new nooks or crannies to explore.
THE DOG always knew something was up. Parking himself in the hallway so he wouldn’t be forgotten, he waited patiently, silently reminding us of his presence while the prep for two months away carried on around him. Kids, bikes, boat and canine: the McDermott clan decamped in convoy from North Kildare to our mobile home in O’Gorman’s Caravan Park in Tramore every summer during my childhood.
My parents sold up when I was 15, and going back recently after an absence of more than 20 years, the adage about the past being a foreign country well and truly hit home. No more inching our way through Gowran, Mullinivat and Thomastown on winding two-lane roads: everything’s been bypassed and motorwayed.
“A hundred miles door to door,” my dad used to declare, tickled at the round nature of the distance involved. Well, it used to take bloody hours to get there, and no one ever wanted to go in my mother’s car, as that involved riding shotgun with the dog, who’d pant on you for the duration. Now? A mere hour and a half on the clock from Waterford city to the Red Cow on the return journey.
Endless warm days spent swimming at Newtown Cove or further along the Copper Coast at Annestown are fond memories. These days, the weather’s changed and Tramore traders, who rely on a good season to buoy them for the rest of the year, are suffering under a slowing Gulf Stream. Summer in the sunny south east just ain’t what it used to be.
In the eighties Cunninghams was best for fish and chips or we headed up to Rocketts of the Metal Man for boiled ribs and mountains of mash. Rocketts is now gone and Cunninghams has been replaced by Dooly’s, but I’m happy to report the chips are still great.
Further afield we ventured to McAlpin’s Suir Inn at Cheekpoint for fresh fish, and Sunday lunch was often spent at the Grand Hotel. I’ve never forgotten the time my mother sent her inadequately satisfactory dessert back seven times — and hey, I’m pretty sure they haven’t either.
Like any good-time girl who’s been partying hard, Tramore’s looking a little faded in parts these days. But while a lot has changed, much more remains the same, like the strand, a five kilometre stretch of golden sands fronting the town, as have the prom and amusements — many of which are exactly the same as they were the last time I was here.
The Esquire, my parents’ favourite eatery is still in situ, as is O’Shea’s hotel, outside of which The Dubliners’ Ronnie Drew was once inexcusably rude to my eight-year-old autograph hunting self. “Ah Jaysus,” he bellowed as I approached, pen and paper in hand. “Look what you’re after doing now, attracting attention, and me only going in for a bit of quiet tea.”
And lots of things are new. These days, O’Gorman’s has been rebranded as the far swisher Newtown Cove Caravan and Camping Park, and this time we didn’t have to stay in a mobile home, something grown-up me was pretty glad about, actually.
The three-star Majestic Hotel was the accommodation of choice. Up at the top end of the town, rooms have panoramic views of the strand and amusements. Don’t expect boutique stylings, because it’s all about inexpensive family-style accommodation. But the room was large, with beds for three, a big picture window and decent public areas for families with kids to relax in.
Dining options have improved hugely. Tramore’s first gastropub, The Seahorse, was a treat and dished up interesting and tasty options like seafood bangers and fat steaks, handcut chips and a great atmosphere, courtesy of owner Keith. Likewise, The Vee Bistro was doing a swift trade the night we visited, no doubt in part to a varied, affordable menu and generous portions. Local craft breweries Metalman and Dungarvan Brewing Companies create golden and pale ales that are out of the ordinary.
During the day, there’s a lot more choice than the mere sun-worshipping we indulged in back then. Local company Oceanics do guided eco beach hikes, rockpool tours and historical walks of the town, all for just a few quid each. Families are catered for with their clever Surfcamp Plus and Family Fun offerings which educate and entertain. “We’re seeing a sea change in attitudes,” says owner Paul Tuhoy. “People want to go out and do stuff again, get kids away from computers, and we offer that.”
From the hard knocks of the 1980s recession when I was a child to our current economic gloom, I’ve never known this town under any circumstances than seriously straitened. And here’s the thing: it’s always been an absolutely brilliant place to visit. Long live the Déise county: to me, it’s absolutely deadly.
THE only thing I can’t figure is why residual memories of summers in Rosscarbery and Inchydoney in West Cork, are bad.
Because the holidays of 35 years ago were anything but. Simple slices of life.
I said ‘damn it’ for the first time in 1977, at least as far as recollection allows. And every time I missed a pot on the pool table in Ray O’Callaghan’s Carbery Arms that summer, I said it again. My father mightn’t have noticed — not to the point of chastising me about it, anyway — if my elderly opponent hadn’t asked me, rather publicly, to cuss more politely. With Golly. Or Gosh.
I felt vaguely humiliated for letting my father down and though I don’t recall what brought about a rapid worsening of the situation (it may have involved using the pool cue as a projectile) I spent the next day locked in a room in the local courthouse.
That isn’t quite as draconian as it appears, though it wasn’t nice. Our lodgings was once the centre of judicial law and order in Rosscarbery, but it had long since been turned into a holiday home. Nevertheless I won’t forget the wet Monday spent peering out of a bedroom window onto what is now the home of Carbery Rangers GAA club. Marshall Hain’s ‘Dancing in the City’ was the soundtrack, since you asked.
Though we were feathered and fed in the delectable Dunmore House Hotel the weekend before last, and had a full set of water-based challenges to keep us wet, I felt a pull towards The Square in Rosscarbery. Ray O’Callaghan’s bar-cum-hotel is no more. He made a fair penny with an opportune sale some time back, but the purchaser couldn’t beat the clock on the Celtic Tiger. So goes the local legend. Tanyard Lane remains, and at its north end is the house of Mrs Hayes, whose dog may still hold against me the sudden yelp I let out when Bernard Brogan finally extinguished Kerry in that notorious All-Ireland semi of 1977.
A visit this time to Owenahincha beach brought little by way of nostalgic nourishment — why so shabby, people? — but most of our beach time 35 years ago was spent at Inchydoney, so the disappointment was fleeting if still felt.
On the Friday evening drive down to Dunmore, three miles outside Clonakilty in West Cork, we estimated it had been nigh on 20 years since our last visit for the wedding of Aidan and Eithne Crowley. And 35 since a family holiday. This time the 12-year-old pool shark was 47, but there are three fresh faces in his stead. We steadily (if not readily) acclimatised to the idea of surfing Saturday and the prospect of Seaweed Kayaking at Union Hall.
But all the while, the real weekend highlight was wrapping itself around us.
Dunmore House Hotel is a third generation family-run hotel overlooking the Atlantic. The owner, Carol Barrett, is an up-at-dawn force of nature, much like the lady of her employ, Ann Marie Harte, who welcomed us into their very Irish hospitality. They can’t organise weather but two weekends ago they made a pretty good fist of it. A newspaper, a choice of bar or restaurant, enough attention to satisfy but not so much to tumble into intrusion. A breakfast that should have a rosette attached.
When Nama finishes slicing and dicing the expensive deadwood of the Mad Years, what will remain in this country — certainly the parts relying on visitors — is Dunmore House Hotel-types. Attention to detail, a management structure where there is no structure. Where no-one asks anything to be done they wouldn’t do themselves.
“This place is very personal to us,” says Carol Barrett. Her parents Derry and Mary turned a 30 acre farm into a hotel and golf course 55 years ago. Now the legacy is nourished by the owner’s refining, improving and reviving old, but good, habits, not least in the beautifully restored dining room.
“There are three mottos,” she adds, “care of the customer, care of the staff and the old fashioned ideal of ‘thank you’. People seem to have forgotten that. We have a large number of the same staff for a long time and nobody goes home from here at night without me thanking them.”
Husband Richard, a Clonakilty-based solicitor, and their four children all strive to ensure not every day is a 15-hour day for their mother.
Saturday for the Leens had an initial sense of a 15-hour day about it. Wayne Murphy was already waiting for us above Inchydoney Beach, assuring me two-hours of surfing with instructor Tristan would cure me of any flu-like symptoms. ‘Murph’ is as close to Bondi as you’ll get without travelling a heck of a distance. Australian, of Irish parentage, he manages the West Cork Surf school for Colm McAuley of Bantry. ‘Red’ as they call him.
Saturday on Inchydoney is a sight. Mums do their beach fitness programme while their cubs start junior life-saving courses. There are pockets of surfers ranging from those of us keen to avoid drowning to surf-speakers who converse in the language of barrels, close-outs, beach-breaks and rips. Yeah, me neither.
Truth to tell, it was good fun, especially for Darragh (14) and Ellie (11). I mention that they have a week-long summer course for kids — two hours a day for five days — for one hundred quid, not because Murph is bigger than me, but because it seems a healthy way to get them out of the house and into something they’ll use and enjoy. (www.westcorksurfing.com) Wetsuits are provided.
Jim Kennedy’s Seaweed Kayaking at Union Hall sounded intriguing, but not so much so that it was going to get in the way of dinner at Dunmore. Yes, I am a weakling Fáilte Ireland, but if you’d seen the monkfish you might better understand.
The reason nostalgia doesn’t work for our children is cos it’s not meant to. It’s for me and my parents, and what they thought about things 35 years ago. I once brought my wife and three to a pitch in Dublin where I missed an important penalty a long time ago. It meant nothing to them. How could it? It was an empty field with posts.
Rosscarbery’s square was pretty much as I remembered it, though one side is dotted with cafes, a fish and chip shop, a bistro and, yes, a Chinese restaurant. I relayed same to Mam by phone and she persecuted herself trying to think of the family we stayed with the second year. It was the Collins’, Mam.
We returned for Mass to Ross on Sunday morning. Dunmore’s lady golfers had a sublime day for their Captain’s Prize as we sat outside the hotel savouring the last few minutes of sun. Below us, the two eldest fed the family ponies and Sarah (7) chased Skipper the Dog.
A simple Sunday slice of life.
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